Page 8 - RusRPTOct19

2.4 Yandex.Taxi valued at $7.7-8.5bn ahead of IPO
In the run-up to what is likely to be the largest Russian IPO in the coming year, investment banks have valued Russia’s biggest taxi service at up to $8.5bn.
Yandex.Taxi is a joint venture between Yandex and Uber and will hold its IPO later this year, or next year, in the United States. Investment banks have made different valuations, but they are all in the same range: Goldman Sachs and Sberbank CIB put it at $7.7bn, UBS at $8.4bn, and BofA Merrill Lynch at $8.5bn.
Yandex.Taxi (along with Yandex’s food services) had revenues of over $300mn last year, and this is expected to double in 2019. Today, Yandex.Taxi accounts for 32% of the Russian taxi market, and this is forecast to grow to 56% by 2023, according to Goldman Sachs.
Yandex.Taxi’s valuation might undermined by any successes enjoyed by Mail.ru and Sberbank’s joint venture (Rus): they are developing their own taxi service, CityMobil. This is also popular in Russia, but has a long way to go until it can rival Yandex.Taxi (by 2022, CityMobil is forecast to have revenues equal to only 18% of Yandex.Taxi’s). Nevertheless, it is a serious competitor: Yandex.Taxi has 56.5% of the Moscow taxi market, CityMobil has 25.4%. Considering that Sberbank and Mail.ru will invest almost $1bn rubles in the service, CityMobil’s market share could grow dramatically.
Successful IPOs by Russian companies have become a rarity in recent years, so the market will be paying close attention to the fate of Yandex.Taxi.
8 RUSSIA Country Report October 2019 ww.intellinews.com